Karishma Tanna

Does it really take you that long to check your inbox? That’s not the usual manner in which we start our interview with Access Girls, but we deliberately made an exception with Karishma because she replied exactly 24 hours after we sent her a text to slot the interview. We were not fuming (at FHM, we hardly do), but were just curious, so we thought why not clarify. “I don’t check my inbox regularly, but surely not for this long. I was a bit tied-up, so maybe it just slipped my mind to read the message you sent,” she tells us.

Now that’s pretty unbelievable because she uses two smartphones phones – a BlackBerry Torch and an iPhone 4S, and we know how impossible it is to not check your inbox, Facebook and Twitter every few minutes. A whole day was surely out of the question. We still believed her though. Not only because that’s the usual explanation people in the glamour industry give, but also because we were absolutely smitten by the pictures her photographer had sent us. She is a stunner as you can see.

She continued, “I’m not a tech savvy person, but I do like good phones. I change handsets every six months, but I hardly check Facebook. I don’t even remember the last time I logged onto it. Perhaps, I’m bored of it and I’m yet to learn Twitter.” Doesn’t matter girl, you’re not losing out on much.

Now that we have found common ground, we ask her about the man things every woman must try. “Any girl who has too much body hair must use a men’s razor. It’s better than those that are made us. Aftershave too. I simply love its smell. I sprinkled my dad’s aftershave on my face. Next on the list would be men’s boxers and Aviators. At times, I even wear men’s shirts. They are so comfortable. However, the winner has to be male watches. Big dials are so cool. I’m fascinated with them. Even when I’m buying a Rolex, I would make sure it has a big dial.”

The Gujarati girl who hails from South Mumbai started her career with Balaji Telefilms’ Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Now why would someone with such dazzling features, a super sexy voice and an attitude to die for end up in daily soaps that mock our sensibilities and even stereotype an actor? “No, I wasn’t stereotyped because I refused to do similar roles offered to me after the show. I have done theatre, television and reality shows, but never repeated myself. That’s a choice I make. If I had continued doing the same type of roles in every other assignment, I would’ve been stereotyped in a certain manner,” she points out.

However, she doesn’t like the bias that filmmakers demonstrate when a telly actor approaches them. “ I don’t know why, but no matter how famous a telly actor is, filmmakers don’t want to work with them. Even Jennifer Aniston worked in Friends for ten years and Will Smith started out on the small screen, as did SRK. But maybe things are changing with Prachi Desai, Yamini Gupta and Ayushman Khurana doing extremely well in films.

The media loved her at the recently concluded Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai where she was the showstopper for designer Ken Ferns. We asked her if models who wait their entire life to be a showstopper are jealous of Bollywood figures who keep walking the ramps these days. “ That’s human, but I don’t call it jealously. It would just inspire them,” says the actress who was first seen in Bobby Deol and Akshay Kumar’s Dosti: Friends Forever. While that film didn’t do any good for her, she’s now all set revamp her Bollywood graph and considering the roles and films she has in her kitty, we are sure she will make it really big in no time.

She will be seen next in Indra Kumar’s sequel to the comedy flick Masti (2004) where she has been paired opposite Vivek Oberoi as his wife. “ It’s not like the seedhi-saadhi wife that Amrita Rao played in the first movie. I play a housewife who works, dresses well, talks smart,” she says about her role. Karishma who loves doing period films will also been seen in Sanjay Dutt’s Sher that’s based on the Gujarat underworld with Dutt playing the role inspired by Gujarati gangster Sharman Munjha. The film that’s set to release in December also stars Vivek Oberoi and Huma Qureshi. “Vivek is a brat, but so grounded that everyone on the set just loves him. Even Sanjay is so chilled out. When I first met him, I addressed him as sir, but later I started calling him Sanju baba.”

So what is it about Sanjay Dutt that we don’t know, but she does? “Firstly, he speaks really good Gujrati, and secondly he has a tattoo on his chest with Nargis written in Urdu and Sunil written in Hindi. He showed it to me. I don’t think you know about it. Do you?” No, we certainly don’t. What we also don’t know is about your choice in men. “He has to be rich. That’s really important. Then he should talk smart, be compatible, and loyal. Haha…” The last one seems to be tough, but at least most girls would like to believe so. She adds, “ I don’t pay a lot of attention to good looks, even someone who’s just okay looking will do. However, he should be presentable.”

And what if one of the FHM readers plans to propose to you? How long should he wait? “Just two years,” and the chirpiness with which she said that made us fall in love with her all over again.

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